Last year, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie performed three sold out shows at Madison Square Garden without a debut album. He wasn’t the headliner, but when Drake asks you to perform an opening set in your hometown, you do it. His debut mixtape, 2016’s Artist, catapulted the 21-year-old from a Bronx striver with “My Shit” to a XXL Freshman with two platinum tracks. His sound mixes melody and grit; transforming his most vulnerable moments into catchy sing-a-longs. Channeling his Uptown charisma and tapping into the du jour sound he adopted during a brief stint in Florida, the result is galvanizing New York’s rap scene. On his debut album The Bigger Artist, he alternates between his rap persona, Boogie, and who he is underneath the fame, the man born Artist Dubose.
He shows contrition on opener “No Promises,” paying respect to a fan who was killed at his concert in Louisville: “Savannah just wanted to see me perform and got hit over stupid shit/I woke up and saw the shit right on my phone, they don’t know who the shooter is.” He peppers guilt through the beginning of the track as he reflects on his life choices and its affect on the people around him. “I treated them bad, I wouldn’t be mad if I was to get treated the same way/So treat me the same way,” he raps. This initial volley of introspection clears the lane for Dubose to explore his fraught relationships on The Bigger Artist, while freeing him to tap into the swagger cemented in Boogie’s music.
One thing about Boogie is that he loves the piano to an extreme degree. It floats over more than half of The Bigger Artist’s 15 tracks, carving out a sound that has become his signature. Fingers run across the keys at the beginning of “Money Sprung,” a flute-infused love song to big bills. It gives his songs a sense of melodrama that falls somewhere between pure gothic sadness and a Pure Moods compilation. But his voice feels at home over piano loops, bouncing around as it does on “Say A’,” a cryptically cheerful song about how fame has altered his encounters with police. Although his affinity for the keyboard is clear, Boogie’s prized instrument is his voice, flipping and distorting melodies. Here, he not only tests the dexterity of his original flow, but reinvents ones from yesteryear.
A large part of his claim to fame was his ability to dig into his soured relationships with women, like the Drake effect, but without the ribbed turtleneck. Buried in this album are cadences of jaded love songs, most notably Lauryn Hill’s “Ex Factor” and Maroon 5’s “This Love.” But, it’s when producers Myster Whyte and Tracksterz interpolate Robin Thicke’s “Teach U a Lesson” that you see how well Boogie can reinvent the wheel. Grabbing Trey Songz for background vocals, “Bad Girl” is his interpretation of a love song, raucous and raunchy, and totally his own.
The Bigger Artist is a peek at Boogie’s potential, but there are moments that feel like déjà vu, both for Boogie and for the state of rap itself. The production on “Undefeated” sounds almost identical to Drake’s “Energy,” and closer “Beast Mode,” screams like a faulty tribute to Future—cramming as many “Freak Hoe” and “Diamond Dancing” references as can fit into four minutes. When his sound doesn’t outright mimic Drake or Future, Boogie sounds slightly ahead of the curve, testing the bounds of melody at every turn.
